DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Description) The polyamines, spermidine and spermine, and their diamine precursor, putrescine, are aliphatic cations essential for cell growth and viability. Cellular levels of the polyamines are carefully managed by a complex web of feedback controls governing polyamine synthesis, uptake and degradation. Abnormal accumulations of the polyamines are associated with aberrant growth states such as cancer, lupus, psoriasis, and others. Consistent with these observations, inhibitors of polyamine biosynthesis are effective against human African sleeping sickness and Pneumocystis carinii infections, and along with cytotoxic polyamine analogs, are showing promise as antitumor agents in chemotherapeutic and c h e moprevention clinical trials. Rapid advances are being made in understanding the basic role that polyamines serve in critical areas of cell physiology and molecular biology, including cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, DNA stability, and ion channel rectification. At the same time there has been a surge of activity, in both academic and commercial centers, in the development and testing of new polyamine analogs and inhibitors of polyamine synthesis, function and transport. The objective of this proposal is to secure partial funding for a Gordon Research Conference on the subject of polyamines that will provide a venue for a free exchange of ideas between active investigators spanning this complete spectrum of interests from basic consideration of polyamine physiology to clinical trials of the efficacy of various strategies in modification of polyamine homeostasis. To achieve this goal the conference program will include sessions on polyamine involvement in the following areas: (a) Cell cycle regulation and apoptosis; (b) Oncogenes and cancer; (c) Cellular effects as demonstrated by use of inhibitors and transgenic organisms; (d) Transport and homeostasis; (e) Control of polyamine metabolism; (f) Analogs and new concepts for anticancer drugs; (g) Protozoan parasites; (h) Polyamine synthesis and function in plants; and (i) Control of ion channels. Further, the speakers and discussion leaders have been selected to represent a diversity of perspectives, and to include a significant portion of investigators who have recently entered into the polyamine field. In the Gordon Research Conference tradition, all attendees are participants. In this field the participants represent many diverse institutions, including basic and clinical science departments, hospitals, government research centers and industrial laboratories, with almost an equal distribution between US and non-US investigators. It is anticipated that such an informal exchange of recent results and ideas, and the discussions engendered, will provide additional direction, minimize duplication of effort, and enhance progress toward development of strategies to understand and control neoplastic disease.